


I kissed a girl (and I liked it)

by ellalightwood



Category: The Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare, The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 19:03:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13371159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellalightwood/pseuds/ellalightwood
Summary: Aline reflects on the kiss she shared with Jace and how she came to terms with her sexuality when she met Helen. Warning: extreme cheesiness. Aline thinks about how much she loves girls in the first half, and then waxes lyrical about Helen in the second half.





	I kissed a girl (and I liked it)

Jace Wayland (Morgenstern, Lightwood, whatever his last name was these days) was Aline Penhallow’s first kiss. He was a good kisser, she supposed; he was neither clumsy nor awkward, his lips were gentle on hers, he knew exactly where to put his hands. If she had been attracted to him, perhaps she would have seen sparks fly when their lips met, felt butterflies in her stomach when he placed his hands on her back. He kissed like he’d done it a thousand times, like it came to him as naturally as breathing. But – to Aline, at least – there was no feeling in their kiss. It was quick, no spark of electricity between them, no rush of sexual attraction, no tongues sliding between teeth. Kisses weren’t meant to feel like that, she knew. Kisses were meant to be hot, full of energy and fiery passion. Kisses were meant to make the whole world disappear, to make time stop, to make you forget about everything except your partner. Aline felt none of that with Jace, and she suspected he felt the same, because he didn’t love her, he loved Clary Fray, who he’d thought was his sister. That was why he had kissed Aline, to try and prove that he wasn’t in love with Clary. Aline assumed, from the look on his face when Clary had walked in on them, that it hadn’t worked.

Aline, meanwhile, wasn’t quite sure why she had kissed Jace. She knew she didn’t like him, not like that. He was just a friend. She had never been interested in him – or, indeed, in any boy. She knew she wasn’t supposed to feel that way, that she was supposed to want to kiss boys and go on dates with them and hold their hands, and more. Her parents had laughed, when she was little and had pronounced boys “gross” and said she never wanted to kiss them. They had told her that she would understand when she was older, that one day she would find a boy she wanted to kiss and hold hands with, and she wouldn’t think they were gross. She had believed them. Every time she shuddered at the idea of kissing a boy, every time she couldn’t understand why her girl friends giggled and blushed and squealed over them, every time she found herself staring at girls rather than boys, she told herself that maybe she was still too young, maybe one day she would coo and swoon over boys just like her friends did, maybe one day she would find a boy and kiss him and it would feel as magical and wonderful as her friends and family said it was.

But as she grew older, as her female friends hooked up with boys and went on dates and gossiped about how it felt to kiss them and sleep with them and hold their hands, Aline began to understand that she was different, somehow. She didn’t find boys beautiful or cute or sexy. She didn’t stare longingly at them or doodle little hearts around their names in her demonology textbook. She didn’t fantasise about being with them, about them sneaking into her room in the middle of the night, about running away and marrying them. The idea of a boy touching the intimate parts of her body made her skin crawl just thinking about it. Instead, she found herself mesmerised by girls’ long, sleek hair, by their long eyelashes and the shape of their lips and the curves of their hips and the strips of bare, smooth skin she saw when their tops rode up above the waists of their jeans and skirts. She caught herself daydreaming about holding their hands, imagining what it would be like to run her fingers through their hair and touch her lips to theirs. She kept it to herself, though; she would never giggle and blush and gossip about girls with her friends, because she knew they’d think she was weird for liking girls the way she was supposed to like boys. Her parents would think she was silly, too young to understand. They would tell her this was all just a phase, that she would grow up and get over it and start liking boys when she was old enough.

When Aline kissed Jace, she finally understood. She wasn’t too young. She wasn’t just going through a phase. This was who she was, a girl who liked girls rather than boys. When Alec Lightwood kissed Magnus Bane, in a room full of Shadowhunters and Downworlders, it gave her the courage to accept herself. Alec and Magnus didn’t make it look wrong or weird or disgusting. They made it look natural, two guys who loved each other, not afraid to display their affection to the whole world. Alec kissed Magnus the same way boys kissed girls, with intensity and passion and burning desire, eyes closed, savouring the moment. She admired him, for having the courage to show everyone who he really was, for not being afraid of being laughed or sneered at, for not caring what his friends and family thought about him liking boys. She knew she would have to tell her own friends and family one day, when she was ready. When she met a girl she really liked, so her parents knew her feelings were real and honest and valid, not just a phase.

When Aline met Helen, she knew right away that she was the one. Helen was beautiful, a study in feminine perfection, her wide eyes the colour of the sea, her long hair the colour of spun gold, her delicate porcelain features and her slender fingers and her Cupid’s bow lips making her look like a princess from a fairy tale. Helen was kind and gentle and funny. She laughed at Aline’s lame jokes. She listened to Aline more than her parents or her friends had ever listened to her. She didn’t think it was weird when Aline confessed that she liked girls; Helen was bisexual, which meant that she liked boys and girls. Helen was the one who taught her that a girl who liked girls was called a lesbian. It felt nice to finally have a word to identify herself by, and she told Helen that the Clave really ought to teach them this sort of thing, to allow young Shadowhunters who were just coming to terms with their sexuality to be able to identify themselves, to feel accepted because there were words out there that described them, which meant that they were normal and there were other people like them in the world. Helen agreed.

Kissing Helen felt totally different to kissing Jace. When Helen’s lips touched hers, when Aline tasted Helen’s lip balm and felt Helen’s hands moving up her back, under her shirt, she realised that she finally understood what all the fuss was about. She understood why girls moaned when boys pressed their lips to their throats. She understood why girls dreamed about touching boys’ naked skin in all the places they wouldn’t be allowed to touch in public. She understood why girls found it so arousing when boys touched their breasts and their hips and their backsides. This was what they meant when they described the tingling sensation of a boy’s fingers tracing their spine. This was what they meant, the blood singing in her ears, the desperate feeling of wanting, longing, needing. She’d wanted Jace to stop the moment his lips touched hers, but Helen – Helen could go on kissing her all day, all week, all year, and she wouldn’t mind. It didn’t feel wrong or gross to her. It felt right, so right, like their hands had been made to hold each other, like their lips were meant to kiss each other. Time slipped by without either of them noticing or caring, and when they broke apart they stared at each other, flushed and breathless, exhilarated by what they had just done. Aline could not quite believe that she had kissed a girl, a real girl, in real life instead of in her dreams. She wanted to do it again and again, until the end of time, to experience all those things her friends had told her about that she had never fully understood until now.

They did do it again, many times, each time more wonderful than the last. Aline knew that she would never tire of doing it, never grow bored of the sensation of Helen’s tongue in her mouth, never stop feeling that thrill when Helen’s bare skin touched hers. When they held hands, Aline relished the feeling of Helen’s slim fingers entwined with hers. When Helen smiled, the sun seemed to shine brighter and all of Aline’s worries vanished. Helen was there for her when she came out to her parents, there for her when her friends’ snide remarks made her eyes sting with tears. When Aline was upset, Helen would make her giggle by peppering her jawline and her nose with little kisses. Helen understood her more than anyone else in the whole world. Aline had rolled her eyes more than once when her friends talked about how in love they were with one boy or another, but now she understood how they felt, because she felt that way about Helen. Her parents took the news that she liked girls better than she expected. Sure, they weren’t overjoyed about it, but they weren’t angry or disappointed or disgusted either. They didn’t openly object to Helen, but Aline knew her mother worried that Helen would break her heart. Which was ridiculous, of course, because Helen would never dream of doing such a thing.

She wasn’t able to thank Alec until after her wedding. She cornered him while Helen bid farewell to her siblings, before Magnus could whisk him back to New York, and thanked him for what he’d done back in Alicante, because it had made her realise that the things she was feeling were normal, that it was okay to like someone of your own sex, that there were other girls like her who liked girls, boys who liked boys, boys and girls who liked both or neither – that love wasn’t just restricted to a man and a woman. Alec’s bravery had enabled her to confess her feelings for Helen, to tell her friends and her parents without shame that she was a lesbian, to open up about her sexuality even though the Clave would disapprove. Without Alec, she would never have met Helen and married her. Without Alec, she might have spent many more years, perhaps the rest of her life, concealing herself from the world. Alec seemed bewildered and stunned at her gratitude, at the thought that one simple, spontaneous action could have affected her so deeply. They hugged, and Alec told her that he was glad that she had found Helen, and that he hoped Helen could make her as happy as Magnus made him.

Aline smiled. She was glad to have found Helen, too.


End file.
